An astronaut’s awe-inspiring views from life in space

The Milky Way appears beyond Earth's horizon on February 3 in a photograph Pettit took using a camera with low light and long duration settings as the space station orbited 259 miles above the Coral Sea off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland. - Don Pettit/NASA

Pettit, an avid astrophotographer, sets up camera hardware to photograph research activities inside the space station's Kibo laboratory module on March 15. - NASA

This January 13 photo from Pettit depicts an array of celestial sights, including the Milky Way, zodiacal light, orbiting Starlink satellites and stars that resemble pinpoints of light. The burnt umber band showcases airglow — light from Earth's upper atmosphere — and Earth's atmosphere is seen on edge. The sun is also about to rise, and city lights from Earth appear as streaks. - Don Pettit/NASA

Pettit witnesses SpaceX's uncrewed Starship 8 break apart in the upper atmosphere and fall back to Earth on March 6. - Don Pettit/NASA

The Mediterranean Sea can be seen from the International Space Station. “Sun glint off the Mediterranean Sea (infrared and converted to black and white)," Pettit described in an October 15 post on Instagram. "When the sun reflects off the ocean, watery details unseen with normal lighting shows up. Small centimeter differences in ocean height become visible, revealing hidden currents.” - Don Pettit/NASA

Pettit's 30-second exposure image showcases an unexplained green cast over the Pacific Ocean. - Don Pettit/NASA

Space doesn't just appear dark to astronauts aboard the space station. They can also see stars, Pettit said. "I flew a homemade tracking device that allows time exposures required to photograph star fields," Pettit said in a post on Instagram. - Don Pettit/NASA

A frame from a time-lapse video by Pettit shows thrusters firing on a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft after it undocked and backed away from the station's forward port on the Harmony module. The orbital laboratory was soaring 259 miles above the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii at the time. - Don Pettit/NASA

Using a blank, white laptop display as the illuminator, a polarizing filter and the space station's freezer, Pettit grew thin wafers of water ice in microgravity, revealing colorful, fragmented ice crystals. The freezer sits at minus 140 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 95 degrees Celsius). - Don Pettit/NASA

Pettit captures a stunning image of cosmic colors on January 27 as the sun begins to rise over the Pacific Ocean. This long-exposure image showcases the Milky Way above an aurora and airglow that shine closer to Earth’s horizon. - Don Pettit/NASA

In October, Pettit and NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick were stunned to see that the space station was flying through auroras. "We were not flying above the aurora; we were flying in the aurora," Pettit posted on Instagram. "And it was blood red. Caught off guard, we hastily set up our cameras, four of them, all snapping shutters as fast as they could, creating a syncopated rhythm that accented Nature’s artistic display presented before us." - Don Pettit/NASA

Pettit documents the way bright lightning reveals distant clouds over the Pacific Ocean on a dark night in November. - Don Pettit/NASA